Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[TheDustyOne]

Maybe I'm a minority but I always found the whole rubber bullet things as hilarious and sad.

We went from seeing Tesleen getting gut like a fish, transformed into a horrendous monster in real time in front of a child to a zone that's supposed to be the wild west with real cowboy, corrupt cops and outlaw ... and thing settle with rubber bullet? Like ... common.

The former is enough to earn a NSFL tag, the latter felt like a bad Disney paradogy.

Another thing I noticed, although relatively minor, was with the FATEs against the bandits. Previous expansions had no qualms just having us slaughter human enemies when their HP is gone, they play the death animation and fade away, but here instead they run away after all their HP is gone. It's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does come across as oddly inconsistent; this is the same game with Tesleen being skewered, Teledji being sliced in half (albeit off-screen), war, genocide, conquest, but a few bandits slaughtering merchants? Nah they gotta live, never mind that they have no qualms in killing us, but we can only subdue them.

The rubber bullets thing just furthers the whole problem of being tonally inconsistent with the rest of the game. I'm sure for some we'd prefer it if characters could incapacitate wherever possible instead of kill, but Hydaelyn / Eitherys has always been shown to be rather brutal and that such ideals, while admirable, aren't always possible.

Also not gonna lie, I thought the whole "the victor of the duel is proven right" thing was stupid. When Ishgard did it, there was at least the idea that divine providence would be shown through the victor, but here it's just... might makes right with no other justification. Not to mention when Ishgard did that, it wasn't portrayed in a positive light and showed why we wanted to pretty much fight against the powers that be in Ishgard. But in not-Texas, we're okay with it?

She makes axes sell. It's crazy.

Good lord not even the Levequests are safe.

[Raven2014]

Another thing I noticed, although relatively minor, was with the FATEs against the bandits. Previous expansions had no qualms just having us slaughter human enemies when their HP is gone, they play the death animation and fade away, but here instead they run away after all their HP is gone. It's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does come across as oddly inconsistent; this is the same game with Tesleen being skewered, Teledji being sliced in half (albeit off-screen), war, genocide, conquest, but a few bandits slaughtering merchants? Nah they gotta live, never mind that they have no qualms in killing us, but we can only subdue them.
.

And also immediately right after is the token "why do people become bandit? Maybe if their lives were better they won't become bandit?" mention.

And when you get to Mehwahhetsoan, there is another token "industrial development is bad for environment and wild life" mention.


Like ... it's weird. Don't get me wrong, FF14 being preachy is nothing news. Sometime even Alphinauh annoyed me of how preachy he is way before DT, and the whole peace and friendship isn't really a Wuk Lamat exclusive. But the thing is in the past, the virtual signalling when it happens, it felt substantial, with intend and purpose, and with effort to make it part of the story. Like the whole Ultima Thule zone felt like a sermon to me, but it was written into a full story. With DT though ... like you said they're just minor detail, token mention that makes me go "huh? Why do that or say that here?". It's like ticking checkboxes, or they're there so they can take an out of context snapshot and put it in a report later to make some ... underwriter happy.


One one hand, they're just minor that doesn't really affect anything important right now. Collectively though, together with the transition to a new writing team and a new era for the game ... it does make me a bit concern if this is the new direction they gonna take the narrative from now on?

[ViaDesperare]

One one hand, they're just minor that doesn't really affect anything important right now. Collectively though, together with the transition to a new writing team and a new era for the game ... it does make me a bit concern if this is the new direction they gonna take the narrative from now on?

You think if nothing is done that the direction will only get worse? Considering the voice side of things and preaching of diversity, and then ending up being racist with tacos being the whole culture... I feel like if we don't get the message across, then the writing team is going to push hard in a direction we won't like.

Feels like any feedback is useless... Well unless we make a huge noise about it.